The care and maintenance of our church buildings, their contents and churchyards is vitally important, now and for the future. 

Advice and support for parishes in this area is provided by the Diocesan Advisory Committee for the Care of Churches (DAC). It is a statutory body that advises parishes, the Archdeacons, the Bishops, and the Chancellor ( an Independent Judge) of the Diocese on matters relating to the care and use of church buildings in the Diocese.

They are also able to advise on protecting church buildings, as well as offer general and specialist advice on church maintenance.

In this section, we cover how the DAC can support your parish, with dedicated pages on:

• Faculty applications
• Planning of building projects in a church
• Churchyards

All forms, guidance documents and policies relating to church buildings and the DAC, can be found in the 'church buildings' section of Documents.

Meeting Dates & Deadlines

Submissions should be made via the Online Faculty System and must be received by 1 pm on the last date for submission to allow time for processing.

Where an application is complete and submitted by the deadline, every endeavour is made to include it on the next DAC agenda. However, if further information is requested because an application is incomplete, and if this is submitted after the deadline, it may not be possible for the case to be discussed at the next meeting.

To download the 2022 dates as a PDF file, please click here

Other useful links

• ChurchCare - churches
• Historic England - caring for heritage and places of worship
• The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings
• Ecclesiastical Insurance - risk management

Key Contacts